WINDY CITY TIMES Copyright © 2002 Lambda Publications Inc. All rights reserved. Dec. 5, 2002
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	STARR LIGHT
	Lana Turner Lana Turner circa 1942 BY STEVE STARR The Golden Girl of the movies was having another violent argument with her mobster boyfriend, but before he could beat her up again, her young daughter stabbed him in the stomach with a kitchen knife, whereupon the handsome thug bled to death on a luxurious pink carpet. Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner was born Feb. 8, 1921 to John and Mildred Turner in Wallace, Idaho. Her parents loved music, and Julia spent many evenings dancing and curling up with them near the record player, where she developed an appreciation for the arts. Little Julia adored going to movies. Every weekday she would save a nickel of her lunch money and on Saturday used the 25 cents to see her favorite stars. She adored fashion-plates like Kay Frances and Norma Shearer and wished she too would some day be drenched head to toe in the same fabulous gowns and jewels, or maybe design them herself. John Turner, working in the mines all day, also supplemented his income with late-night card games. One evening, after bragging about planning to buy with his winnings a tricycle his beautiful 10-year-old girl had begged him for, he was robbed and murdered. In 1936, in search of a better life, Mildred and Julia moved to Los Angeles, where Mildred worked in a beauty parlor. One day not long after their arrival, 15-year-old Julia was sitting on a stool at the Top Hat Cafe, across the street from Hollywood High School (it was not at Schwab's, as legend told it), having a coke. The publisher of the Hollywood Reporter, W.R. Wilkerson, was sitting there at the same time. Enthralled with her beauty, he introduced himself, gave Julia his card, and instructed her to call his new talent agent, Zeppo Marx. Soon, she was teamed with director Mervyn Leroy, and together they decided to change her name to Lana. She appeared in her first role--the sweet, cute girl wearing a tight sweater who gets murdered in the well-written film They Won't Forget (1937). The critics loved her, and she soon became widely known as "The Sweater Girl." When Lana appeared as an Asian in The Adventures of Marco Polo (1937), her hair was dyed black. The director insisted her eyebrows be plucked off and painted on black and straight. They never grew back, and for the rest of her life she had them either drawn on or imitated with individually glued on hairs. Other films she made included Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938) with Mickey Rooney, Calling Dr. Kildare (1939) with Lew Ayres, These Glamour Girls (1939), Ziegfeld Girl (1940), with Judy Garland and Hedy LaMarr, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1940), with Ingrid Bergman and Spencer Tracy. In 1940, on her 20th birthday, she eloped with bandleader and drummer Artie Shaw, her co-star in Dancing Co-Ed (1939), who became the first of her seven husbands. She kissed him for the first time right after their Las Vegas ceremony. The violent union gave way within four months. Two years later the woman now dubbed the "Nightclub Queen" married the unknown Stephen Crane. That union dissolved with an annulment when it was learned he had not yet been divorced from his first wife. Pregnant Lana, not wishing an illegitimate childbirth, reluctantly remarried Crane for one more year, and they had a daughter, Cheryl Christine. Other husbands included millionaire Bob Topping from 1948 to 1952, Tarzan actor Lex Barker from 1953 to 1957, ranch owner Fred May from 1960 to 1962, merchant Robert Eaton from 1965 to 1969, and nightclub hypnotist Ronald Dante from 1969 to 1972. All ended in divorce. Lana's affairs with the film colony's leading men were legendary. When Mervyn Leroy left Warner Bros. for MGM Studios, he took Lana with him and her salary continued to rise. The first thing she did was buy a home for mother and her to live in. Soon, she was making $1,500 a week. When the United States entered the war, Lana rode the rails selling war bonds, and offered "a sweet kiss" to anyone who bought $50,000 or more. Lana told the press, ... "I kept that promise hundreds of times. I'm told I increased the defense budget by millions of dollars." In 1945, Lana's salary rose to $4,000 a week, and she won a role in a sensational story that barely passed the censors, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), with John Garfield, which had been adapted form James M. Cain's steamy novel. The author was delighted that Lana was playing the role of Cora. In the film, as the sensuous, murderous, gorgeous waitress who never gets a spot on her spectacular, entirely white designer wardrobe, she rose to new heights of movie stardom. In 1948, Lana made her first color appearance on screen in The Three Musketeers, and was a knockout in lavish gowns and jewels. One critic wrote, " ... She is a proper goddess." In 1953,Turner was highly acclaimed again for her performance in a great story about Hollywood, The Bad and The Beautiful, with Kirk Douglas and Gloria Grahame. Daughter Cheryl, who killed her mother's insanely jealous small-time gangster boyfriend when he threatened to kill her mother April 4, 1958, was defended by the famed Jerry Geisler. She was acquitted at the inquest, never going to trial. Later, Lana's sensational sexually charged letters to her dead lover were stolen from her home and sold to the press. The onslaught of publicity was severe and the courts sent Cheryl to live with Lana's mother, believing it was a better environment for her. [Cheryl later came out as a lesbian in her autobiography.] Turner's career amazingly survived and flourished and she went on to make Imitation of Life (1959), a huge, glossy production with John Gavin and Sandra Dee. Lana's film successes continued through middle age, when she often played the love interest of much younger men. Her last film was Madame X (1966). She continued her successful career on the stage and later appeared regularly on television's Falcon Crest. Lana once stated, "If I could have foreseen everything that was going to happen to me, all the headlines my life would make, all the people who would pass through my days, I wouldn't have believed a syllable of it." After a lifetime of heavy cigarette smoking, Lana Turner died of throat cancer June 29, 1995, in her Century City, Calif., home. Her ashes were given to her daughter Cheryl.   Sources: The Hollywood Reporter-Star Profiles edited by Marc Wannamaker; They Had Faces Then by John Springer and Jack D. Hamilton; The New York Times Directory of the Film; Lana Turner Websites. Steve Starr is the author of Picture Perfect-Art Deco Photo Frames 1926-1946, published by Rizzoli International Publications. A designer and artist, he is the owner of Steve Starr Studios, specializing in original Art Deco photo frames, furnishings, and jewelry, and celebrating its 35th anniversary in 2002. Visit the glamorous studio at 2779 N. Lincoln Avenue in Chicago where adorning the walls is Steve Starr's collection of more than 950 gorgeous frames filed with photos of Hollywood's most elegant stars. Photo of Steve Starr, July 25, 2002, by Albert Aguilar. You may e-mail Steve at SSSChicago@ameritech.net
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